Light weight articles are increasingly prepared by assembling large prefabricated components. Examples include the construction of watercrafts and rotor blades for wind turbines, which are typically prepared by joining two large prefabricated halves. Such components are typically bonded together using adhesives.
The increased demand for cost-efficiency has lead to such components having increasingly large dimensions. This requires suitable adhesives not only to have the required mechanical properties but also desirably to have long open pot times. Long open pot times allow the adhesives to be applied to large surface without premature curing, i.e. they can be applied to large surfaces in a single process step. In European Patent Application No. EP 2 222 745 a polyurethane-based adhesive composition is described, which has a long open pot time and is reported to be suitable for bonding large areas, like rotor blades of wind turbines.
However, an additional requirement for a cost-effective production process involves the rapid turn-over of the bonded components. This can be achieved by adhesives that rapidly generate a sufficient adhesive strength. This allows the bonded articles to be moved to the next position in the production line shortly after the application of the adhesives and thus makes the production process more cost-efficient.